Wednesday, December 19, 2007

We started processing your application on April 30, 2007. Medical results have been received. A decision has been made on your application. The office will contact you concerning this decision. You entered Canada at the Douglas office on December 18, 2007 and became a Permanent Resident.

Thank God, Canada and CIC and Canadian Visa Office - Buffalo for the accepting us ( me and family ) as PR and the fast processing. I applied as Skilled worker immigrant category on Canadian Visa Office - Buffalo.

Simmonds is a member of the management board of the Jericho Forum, an organization pushing for innovation in e-commerce security, and is also chief information security officer for a large, global chemicals corporation. Here, Simmonds speaks out about why the Jericho Forum regards today’s VoIP systems as “guilty” of not meeting a necessary level of security. For anyone discussing this with your vendors, Simmonds has also drawn up a “Ten ‘nasty’ questions to ask your VoIP supplier” that’s included at the end of this column.

We in the IT security industry are collectively guilty for allowing a fundamentally insecure system such as VoIP to be launched into the market.

We’ve known for years that only “secure out of the box” should be the default. Yet VoIP is not only insecure by default, it’s almost impossible to make natively secure. What’s worse, VoIP end-devices (the phones) are a full computer – usually with their own Web browser, and (insecure) File Transfer Protocols to manage the firmware updates. So just as organizations are coming to grips with managing the vulnerabilities on their PCs, we have just doubled the management nightmare.

The return-on-investment claims made for moving to VoIP rarely stand up to proper scrutiny. The phones cost more than a standard “business” phone, and have a reduced replacement cycle. Gartner says in its November 2006 report “IP telephony technology, in many cases, can be more expensive than equivalent TDM-based PBX Systems.”

The ability to benefit from toll-bypass (routing your voice traffic over your private WAN to take advantage of spare WAN capacity) is frustrated by the fact that peak time for voice traffic is also the peak time for data traffic on the WAN. Most network managers that I know are looking for ways to offload peak traffic from congested, expensive corporate WAN links – not add huge volumes.

The ability to integrate your computer and your phone is another “benefit” that is on the salesperson’s list, with features such as Click to Call, Find Me/Follow Me and Unified Messaging, but in reality companies rarely take any advantage of such CTI (computer-telephony integration) options.

Then toss in all the extra Band-Aid solutions you need to add, from VoIP firewalls to specialist VoIP security assessments (just run a Google search for “VoIP security solutions”), to make it even partially secure, and the extra management for firmware upgrades, vulnerability assessment and mitigation, and of course the WAN upgrades and all of a sudden those incredible savings the sales-person promised magically disappear.

VoIP is, in essence, a time bomb, poised for a massive exploit. With VoIP gaining traction in the corporate world, from boardrooms to the world's financial trading floor, VoIP is a public security exploit waiting to happen – with the large potential consequences. But unfortunately, this may be what is needed before the industry agrees to take VoIP security seriously.

The historical problems with being able to listen in to conversations that people assumed were secure (or where people assumed security through complexity) are well known: In the 1980s, the world became aware of problems with analog cell phone security when tabloid journalists printed details of an intimate cell-phone conversation between Prince Charles (than married to Princess Diana) and Camilla Parker Bowles. We’re at the stage now with VoIP that something like that is likely to happen, but with consequences far more serious than embarrassment on the part of the British royal family.

At the 2006 Black Hat conference, David Endler and Mark Collier spent a very entertaining hour abusing a mix of VoIP phones, from being able to set up a call and listen in without the called phone ringing to a full corporate denial-of-service attack by making all phones repeatedly ring every 10 seconds (with no one there when answered).

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” doesn’t apply hereAt the 2007 Black Hat Conference, there were no less than five presentations on the insecurity and general problems with VoIP.

VoIP does have advantages in certain business situations, such as running an international follow-the-sun help desk or an overseas call center operation, but those business cases are limited and the security risks of VoIP should far outweigh most ROI cases.

Getting the security right, and according to Jericho Forum principles, will finally give a true business case with real ROI: The ability to securely integrate disparate sources of VoIP phones (from VoIP clients on cellular devices, to BlackBerry, Wi-Fi VoIP phones and PC soft phones, as well as the traditional desk phone) connected on LAN connections that probably will not be on a LAN managed by your organization.

Oddly enough, when I used VoIP to discuss this Network World column with a colleague in the United States, the call dropped five times. I gave up and switched back to my cell phone.

Do I like VoIP? It has great potential, but for now the answer is no.

The 10 nasty questions to ask your VoIP supplier:

1. Do all phones and the central infrastructure use 100% secure protocols?

2. Will you warrant this system to operate on the raw Internet with no further add-on devices?

3. Can you manage all VoIP devices automatically, simply, with a scalable, easy-to-manage solution that will support all VoIP end-client including soft phones and end-devices that are connected on the Internet?

4. Explain how phones are, by default, securely provisioned. Including devices that you do not have physical possession of during the provisioning process.

5. Explain how you can conclusively prove that a phone using your system was provisioned by you.

6. Explain how you can conclusively prove that when I make a call, (say from my hotel room) I can be 100% assured that my phone is connecting to the corporate exchange (without using extra security devices such as IPSec).

7. Explain how users are strongly authenticated when connecting their devices. Ideally both device and user should authenticate.

8. Will your system allow federation of identities so we do not need to maintain (yet another) autonomous authentication system?

9. Is there segregation of duties? For example: can the administrator access voice mail and set passwords without the user being aware.

Friday, December 14, 2007

One of the most important changes of the last 30 years is that digital technology has transformed almost everyone into an information worker.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity. This isn't true at all.

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

That's true for everyone from the retail store worker who uses a handheld scanner to track inventory to the chief executive who uses business intelligence software to analyse critical market trends.

So if you look at how progress is made and where competitive advantage is created, there's no doubt that the ability to use software tools effectively is critical to succeeding in today's global knowledge economy.

A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career.

Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science.

If you look at the most interesting things that have emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable music devices and video games or more practical things like smart phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science and engineering.

The power of software

Today and in the future, many of the jobs with the greatest impact will be related to software, whether it is developing software working for a company like Microsoft or helping other organisations use information technology tools to be successful.

Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

This isn't true at all.

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Second step: downloading the os2008 image as per instructions 1,2 and 3 from the article. My little Einstein asked: why not try directly from windows. kool idea - no linux, no flasher nothing :-).

Tried :- failed

Again back to linux, followed the steps and works like a gem.

yankandpasteing the steps for my/others reference

Go to the N810 software download page. Enter the serial number for a valid N810 device. To get one of these, pick any number between 001d6e9c0000 to 001d6e9cffff. Pick any random 4 digits (between 0-9 and a-f hex) as the last 4 digits. Download the file named "RX-44_2008SE_1.2007.42-18_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin." Download the latest firmware-upgrading software, "flasher-3.0". Now that you have the firmware flasher and the 2008 N800 software update in the same directory, open up a terminal (on a Linux desktop/laptop), and type:chmod a+x ./flasher-3.0./flasher-3.0 -u -F RX-44_2008SE_1.2007.42-18_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin. That will unpack the software, and it may take a few seconds. Once that is done, plug the N800 into your computer, using the included USB cable, then reboot the Nokia device while holding the home button. Now execute the following commands: sudo ./flasher-3.0 --enable-rd-modesudo ./flasher-3.0 -k zImage -fsudo ./flasher-3.0 -n initfs.jffs2 -fsudo ./flasher-3.0 -r rootfs.jffs2 -f -R That should be it. Your device should now boot up with the new 2008 version of the Nokia Maemo operating system.

Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth. - Genesis 11.

Time passed ....

British concurred the world. They spread English. English stayed as International Language ( yes I accept more people speak Mandarin and Hindi ).

Now Its time for the Second Tower of Babel and what may be Lord doing ?

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Jingle is subject of numerous specifications produced by XSF. It can be difficult to locate the set of documents or lot of documents where the big picture lies in a different group.This document serves as a guide to the jingle series. It lists the specifications under Jingle umbrella, briefly summarizes and groups into categories.

The Jingle is subject to numerous specifications produced by XSF. It is tough to get the big picture of the related technologies and relevance with jingle as the different technologies spread across different standard bodies. By giving emphasis on the big picture, this document tries to give the big picture and helps to identify the areas and importance.

2.0 Scope of this Document:

This document does not update jingle or related specifications. This is an informational document meant to guide newcomers, implementers and deployers to the Jingle suite of specifications.

3.0 Jingle Session management Specifications

Jingle consists of three parts, each with its own syntax, semantics, and state machine

The Overall session management represents the group of specifications that defines the core session generation,maintenance and tear down.

Jingle Core

This document defines a framework for initiating and managing peer-to-peer multimedia sessions (e.g., voice and video chat) between two Jabber/XMPP endpoints in a way that is interoperable with existing Internet standards.

This memo defines the core features of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), a protocol for streaming Extensible Markup Language (XML) elements in order to exchange structured information in close to real time between any two network endpoints. While XMPP provides a generalized, extensible framework for exchanging XML data, it is used mainly for the purpose of building instant messaging and presence applications that meet the requirements of RFC 2779.

Friday, November 16, 2007

The first remake i saw was the Rajni movie ChandraMukhi. While watching Chandramukhi, i was watching it as a Rajni film and not as a manichirathazu remake.

While watching the bhool bhulaiyaa, I realized the depth of characters,visuals, songs in Malayalam. Bhool bhulaiyaaA worst remake i ever saw - may be second because first i will say virasath - thavar magan.

But if i watch it as a Hindi movie, i think its an OK movie. Its actually a good movie compared to Hindi standards. Vidya Balan looks far better than the Tamil remake Jothika ( her actions were like comedy ).

Verdict : A good hindi movie but the Malayalam version is far far far superior to all the other remakes.

I really suggest the Hindi viewers to watch the complete Malayalam movie or even some strips ( available in you tube ).

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

from websiteMirial Softphone is the most advanced software-only client for professional quality videoconferencing in H.323 and SIP environments - the first in its class with HD 720p support.

With Mirial Softphone, a webcam and a laptop or desktop PC every user can immediately start taking advantage from video conferencing and collaborative work, while enjoying an amazing visual experience: the product is the first softphone to support 720p High Definition and H264, thus providing a sharp, clear, outstanding video quality in both encoding and decoding.

our comments:Not sure how its going to work on a normal laptop with a DSL or cable based internet connection. But for future - yes we need these steps.

If announcing the Android mobile handset open source software development kit (SDK) wasn’t enough for Google (www.google.com) today, the company is putting up $10 million in cash prize money for Android developers.

The Android Developer Challenge is designed to support the developer community and spark innovation on the Android open mobile platform, announced last week in conjunction with the Open Handset Alliance. Cash prizes from $25,000 to $275,000, with applications picked by a panel of judges. Submissions for the first round of Challenge I will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008, with the 50 most promising entries recognized by the end of March. Each of the first round entry winners will receive $25,000 awards to fund further development.

Round two of Challenge I is more complicated. The 50 entries get to apply again by May 1, 2008, with the top 10 getting $275,000 each, and the next 10 receiving $100,000. Awards for round two of Challenge one will be done by the end of May 2008. A Challenge II will launch after the first handsets built on Android become available in the second half of 2008.

A panel of technology and mobile experts selected from the Open Handset Alliance member organizations and the industry in general will judge all qualifying entries. Awards will be given to the developers whose applications leverage all that the Android platform has to offer in order. Finally, developers retain all intellectual property and other rights to their applications, so even if they don’t win an award, they can still make some money from their work.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

I was going through the one newly issued patent on "Routing path optimization between sip endpoints". This patent is based on RFC 3261, 3489 etc. I am not sure this is a correct way because IETF contributes for the betterment of the society. These companies who try to take advantage of open standards and make patents on it looks not ethical for me.

My 2 cents for - if these companies want to build these kind of intellectual property based on open standards, they should publish them as open standards. I don't know the policy of IETF on these issues but its advisable for them to have a policy for the "use of intellectual property" build on top of the open standards so that people who build business using the open standards will not be in trouble.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

ooma's patent-pending call-routing algorithm-Distributed Termination-uses the internet to connect local calling areas throughout the United States for free instead of relying primarily on traditional phone switches, known as the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). As a result, each ooma customer who maintains their landline helps grow the ooma network. ooma's call-routing technology ensures a completely transparent experience so that the ability to make and receive phone calls is not impacted when their line is in use by another ooma caller.

As an example: Let's say you want to call "Claire" in Boston. You simply pick up the phone and dial. The ooma call is routed via the internet to an ooma customer with a landline in the 617 area code (let's call her "Cassy"). Cassy's ooma device (in Boston) completes the call by acting as a gateway and routes the call from her broadband to her landline, which is used to place a free call to your friend Claire. All this is done without any interruption to Cassy's phone service. In fact, Cassy doesn't even know her landline is in use and shall still be able to make and take phone calls.

What this means ? Simple words ?

You are an ooma custmer with a land phone, attach a record machine and you may able to get some other ooma cusomter's creditcard , personal talks and other secrets !!.

Nice for a movie story thread with getting hits of a murder or some theft through recording your own phone and finally getting criminals to law. But mostly the actual may be different - some body can listen to your private talk and black mail or stole personal information ( like creidcrad, otehr secrets u say by phone )

Do you think this kind of a system worth patent ? and the security threat u want to have by subscribtion ?

yes, finally i am realizing the fact. I know there is lot questions why i think so ? or the best open source support company is that and you say its evil ?

lets looks on facts.

First of all, i accept its contributions to open source and i say its really valuable.

Now lets looks what google does,

First case : Google talk : yes its based on XMPP and the library they use (libjingle) is open source.

Fact : true but read the libjingle page :

"The current version of the libjingle code still uses the original internal protocol, which is slightly different from, and incompatible with, the Jingle specification. Nevertheless, it is close enough to Jingle that it is worthwhile learning the Jingle specifications. Similar "close but not identical" conditions exist for libjingle's audio content description (early version of Jingle Audio Content Description Format XEP-0167), ICE transport description (early version of Jingle Ice Transport XEP-0176), and raw UDP transport description (early version of Jingle Raw UDP transport description XEP-0177). Where this documentation refers to "Jingle" or one of its related extensions (in terms of how libjingle uses that protocol), it really refers to the original, internal protocol "

what this means ? The Old Microsoft evil : "Embrace, extend, and exterminate". Even google does not document their internal protocol. means giving free code is to spoil the standards and the whole work happened before.

This reminds me open source as APAC countries and the Non-open source as European and North American countries. In APAC, they fight each other always and they never think of a joint solution. They buy arms from the Eu and NA countries and spend the most part of their money which is supposed to be used for their development and finally make the EU and NA countries more rich. After effect :

The APAC are poor, undeveloped nations spending high on defenseEU and NA - Rich developed nations.

Google by applying the Evil factor it making the open source community more poor.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

1) First and foremost, I want an easy to use OS. Sorry, Symbian and Windows Mobile--though both these mobile OSes have plenty of power, they're not the easiest for the smartphone newbie to understand. Palm is a fine OS, but it's getting to be rather dated and sadly underpowered. Ideally, the Android platform will be as easy to use as OS X on the iPhone, but with a lot more flexibility.

2) Google has already come to my aid with the second feature I want--the ability to install and use a wide range of applications. I would be happy with the Google apps alone--I use GMail and Google Calendar religiously, and Google Docs would be great to have--but if Google truly believes in the open-source movement, they would open the doors for their competitors to enter the gate as well. This means I want to see apps from Yahoo and Microsoft on here along with all the other third-party ones.

Ans : Mozilla based web browser with flash and other support.

3) Following up on number 2, these are the applications I want on the phone: A fast and well-built browser that supports Flash as well as Java, a multiple IM client, an e-mail client that supports POP and IMAP, compatibility with Microsoft's Exchange server for work e-mail, and perhaps this is a pipe dream, but I want a VoIP client. Ideally, I'd like a mobile Skype app, as well as compatibility with something like T-Mobile's HotSpot @ Home, where I get to make free calls via WiFi.

Ans : garage.maemo.org - you will see more than 409 projects ( skype is already there )

4) It needs to be fast. That means I want 3G, and I want Wi-Fi as well (OK, so this is encroaching on hardware territory a bit). Thankfully, Qualcomm has mentioned that 3G will be a big part of Android, so this isn't too far from reality. That said, 3G and Wi-Fi together in one package would be ideal.

Ans : I don't know how many 3Gs are already deployed, I don't understand why you need even 3G when WIMAX or 4G ( all ip based infrastructure) rolls out

5) Open up Bluetooth as much as possible. That means I want stereo Bluetooth as well as the ability to tether my PC to the phone via Bluetooth and use it as a modem. This combined with the phone's 3G abilities would obviate the need for a separate EV-DO or HSDPA PC card.

Ans : have a looks on

"7.4 BluetoothA high level API for Bluetooth is offered as part of the maemo connectivity subsystem.Using its D-BUS API a program can find remote Bluetooth devices such as phones,send files over OBEX object push and create pairings with remote devices. For thesetasks it’s recommended for application to use this framework as it not only has a lot simpler API but makes the applications look and behave consistently. For Bluetooth operations that aren’t supported by the maemo connectivity framework maemo includes a lower level BlueZ D-BUS API, which is also the main Bluetooth interface for all Linux systems. The BlueZ API has features for practically all aspects of Bluetooth systems, and as a consequence its a lot more complex than the higher level Maemo Connectivity subsystem’s offerings.The Maemo Connectivity Guide[41] describes the high level D-BUS API and its usage. More information about the BlueZ API can be found at BlueZ web site [3]. The maemo-example package also includes example code about both libraries.

Today morning while checking my mail, found a mail asking whether i got the activation mail. I replied saying clicked and nothing happened. 5 minutes - they send back a mail saying my account is activated.

Rushed in to the site, made the first call, wow works!!. Normal idea executed nicely.

I didn't try the sip call because my 3 call limit got over with 3 PSTN calls and i am sure all the SIP HYPERs will do that first than PSTN call. I think the sip should change its name to HYPE because always a lot HYPE marketers make it live.They don't bother a business system build on top of sip is struggling from SUEs (vonage). They don't want to address those issues but want to say SIP SIP and SIP.

I am not sure it works only for sip because if its an asterisk at backend, it can make calls to other protocols also. I was to try but my 3 call limit is over :-(.

and the client talks to web server using custom protocol with the primitives

===logincreateCallcreateSipCallsetCallIddisconnectCall

playonStatus

_result

===No firewall traversal problems because call always goes to server( no peer o peer) but expensive at server side for network bandwidth. Again this i didn't explore that detail because the PSTN calls always need to go to a gateway.

The security ? yep looks they still believe in md5 for encrypting password.

Business model : its a video advertisements model. So we say when you make a call,ring with a video and audi on, then video ( only video because there is only one mic ) advertisements. May be they change, if no body buy them.

Gips is expanding to domain of servers, clients from the core audio engine product.

The gips site says : REX PC is a comprehensive communication solution that leverages the Internet to deliver advanced features such as PC based calling, IM and voicemail. REX also provides the features and functions that service providers seek in a softphone. The customizable GUI allows service providers to deploy a softphone with the look and feel of their choice..

If you ever used translink.bc.ca for trip planning, i am sure u got angry with the slow response of the map. I tried it a couple of times and i was really mad of the response. The deadly slow response of the map site was a big problem.

Its nice to say now we can use Google transit for trip planning in Vancouver.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per a 1969 act, in section "49-O" that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn't want to vote anyone!Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called "49-O".Why should you go and say "I VOTE NOBODY"... because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled .Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them .This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way, of our whole political system... it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public....Please spread this news to as many as you know... Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India... show your power,expressing your desire not to vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting... so don't miss your chance. So either vote, or vote not to vote (vote 49-O) and pass this info on.

Monday, October 22, 2007

"AT&T has filed a lawsuit against Vonage, claiming patent infringement. This is the third major lawsuit to have been brought against Vonage by a major phone company. Vonage lost the previous two lawsuits, brought by Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. How much more money can Vonage afford to give away? How can Vonage educate a jury on prior art? 'It said in a filing to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that AT&T is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory and treble damages and attorneys' fees in unspecified amounts. Vonage said the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin on October 17.'"

from : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/20/0022232&from=rss

Friday, October 12, 2007

Was browsing through Orcut. Nice to see the Old friends online after a lot years.

The little things came to notice :

The people who was not that into studies, who do all extra activities - almost all - are settled in US / out of India .The best part is most of them are very family oriented ( result from analysis of the pictures and scraps ).

The kids who were doing full time studies are in local jobs ( in India )- they still deserved to be called as kids.

Girls ( no matter how they studied or loved ) are mostly in US due to their spouse.

The collage couples - who were always together in college and were decided to live/die together ( or pretended so ) - 90% have different spouses. The best part was i was able to find the "Calf Love" mostly in their friends list.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

While speculation runs rampant that Sprint may cut back or cancel its WiMAX deployment, AT&T (www.att.com) signaled it intends to do something in the RF “beachfront property” – 700 MHz spectrum.

Earlier this week, AT&T announced it would buy the largest current holder of 700 MHz licenses in the U.S., Aloha Partners. AT&T will pay $2.5 billion in cash for the licenses and will obtain 12 MHz of spectrum covering 196 million people. The licenses cover all of the top 10 markets in the US and 72 of the top 100 U.S. markets, with a focus on former UHF TV channels 54 and 59.

Aloha was in the process of conducting several market trials and all of the 700 MHz spectrum it has purchased will be available for use after the DTV transition date in February 2009; in some area UHF TV stations are still operating either on or near the spectrum that Aloha had the rights for.

The 700 MHz band is frequently described as “beachfront property” for its ability to propagate through buildings and other obstacles, as well as its longer range when compared to other spectrum in U.S. A major metropolitan area that would require many 2.5 GHz WiMAX transmission sites could be served by one or two 700 MHz sites, depending upon geography and transmission power.

Meanwhile, Sprint is being pressed by Wall Street investors and analysts to cut back or shut down its WiMAX rollout. The no-WiMAX-camp wants Sprint to focus on being a cellular company, but others point out that without new products, Sprint has little new to offer customers in a time where cellular phone sales have leveled off in the United States. Both Intel and Motorola have committed substantial resources to deploying WiMAX equipment and Intel has also invested substantial money into second-largest U.S. WiMAX provider Clearwire.

In the end, Sprint may have no other strategic choice than to continue with their WiMAX deployment because they may not have the resources necessary to engage in aggressive bidding in the final round of 700 MHz auctions scheduled in January 2008. Sprint could have a fully deployed 4G WiMAX network deployed, operational, and with paying customers in 2008, while the 700 MHz spectrum won’t be fully “clear” until the DTV switchover in 2009

B) The worst is Vonage's Loss on IPR issue: read the Patent and felt sad to the people who allowed it to be a patent ( ex: a server which responses to queries to translate uri to a phone no: etc ). I wonder its just an application of database and its a server - i don't know its a database server - ODBC can do this, or if the patent is for combination of server, transaction etc then DNS do it. I belive the patents need to be more better.

Look at N800 from Nokia: a full Linux tablet. An excellent device to have potential to replace all mobile phones in future with Wimax with sprint ( Sprint CEO stepped down - so what 'll happen to the wimax project ). Acanac offerd me one for free ( thanks to them - they are my VOIP provider )

Friday, October 5, 2007

First, it probably will not save users as much as they would end up spending on extra hardware to maintain call quality ­ the promise of savings is a red herring.

But there is a bigger problem in that most people punting IP telephony completely miss the point about its real value. They are stuck in a 130-year-old mindset in which telephony begins and ends with the ability of two people to talk when they are apart. Several embellishments have been added ­ voicemail, caller ID, call forwarding ­ but it is still all about talking. If all that has changed is the way the voice signal is carried, then voice over IP (VoIP) changes nothing.

But if voice is simply another data stream, then it can be mixed up and enriched with other data streams. Once that happens ­ once phone systems are connected to financial and customer records ­ a world of opportunities opens up. Business can start being extracted from a system that was previously just part of the furniture.

Link caller ID with other information, for example, and suddenly when customers call, their profiles pop up on screen even before the call has been answered. Everything can be seen ­ from outstanding invoices, to what happened last time the customer called the company, to how profitable the account is.

Making well-integrated information available to the right people as soon as or even before they need it makes for better, faster customer service and happier customers.

Even better, an integrated system makes it easy to keep information up to date. Suddenly, a customer relationship management system simply is an address book and it automatically tracks every phone call, SMS or email exchanged with every customer. The customer database is always up to date and shared throughout the organisation. It can also become a rich source of information for new business creation.

That is the true value of VoIP. Forget about saving pennies on phone calls and look instead to the new business it can create

Zimbra - $350 million (on ~$10 million (guessing here, but guessing at the high end, I think) of trailing revenues) - September 2007 XenSource - $500 million (on $1 million in trailing revenues) - August 2007 JBoss - $350 million (on $27 million in 2006 revenues) - June 2006 Sleepycat - $35-50 million (on ~$7 million in trailing revenues, is my best guess) - February 2006 Gluecode - $10 million (on very little in trailing revenues, less than $1 million, I believe) - May 2005 SUSE - $210 million (can't remember revenues - I think $30-40 million) - November 2003 Ximian - ~$50 million (I can't remember - on $1 million or so in trailing revenues) - August 2003What's the trend? Bigger. We are in the midst of a Gold Rush, as Dana Blankenhorn has written. The rules of software business are being rewritten, and those who understand them will make a lot of money for shareholders...and themselves.

While the early days of open source saw a few wild valuations (Ximian comes to mind, though I still think it was a good move by Novell, as it brought open-source DNA to the company), it's only recently that we've seen open source break $100 million valuations on very little revenue.

Clearly, the market feels like the best is yet to come.

And so it is. Now is a fantastic time to be involved in redefining the software industry to one that focuses on customers, not licenses. You should join.

Wikipedia search resulted in some news about rakshasas.Rakshasa's were described to have large bodies, probably due to their continuous life in cold climates over snow covered mountains [Ref wikipedia ]. This means they were/are whites or more in white color like Aryans (reason in cold countries/places we know people will be more white in color).

Krishna is discribed as "Neela karvarna" means the person with color of blue clouds ( more blueish black in color - a Dravidian color )

This means the people describes as Aryans and Whites are Rashasas and Rama,Krishna were dravidians.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

ATV - All Terrain vehicle. Was reading more in this. In developed countries ATVs are used for farming activities and other recreation. Countries like New Zealand, Australia, Canada use them in farms with a lot farm attachments like Seed Spreader, Plow, Loader, Fertilizer spreader.

Why not these people work together and make good engines than fighting each other ? Do they don't know Hondas and Suzuki's make good engines than them. Look at west - Pontiac sells Vibe which has complete Toyota engine against Toyota matrix ( same car under Toyota badge).

I was wondering about an ATV using a good 200 cc - 300 cc India made engine ( lets look which engines and patents work ) for normal farm use. It should help people to do most farm needs without much money. May be these usage may make better engines.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

A few days ago, Unni posted about the malicious and criminal use of social networking portals. I know this debate has been there for a long time. In fact, like most of our other topics of interest, this one keeps coming back to our drawing rooms and cafe tables every once in a while with a new story break, a murder, a kidnap, a virus, a fraud...

We follow up such stories with great interest, collect every detail, add a few more hits to those sites, debate vigorously on using this new media discreetly, blast those unscrupulous fellows, and yeah, get back to our social networking portals and daily chores with the same interest and continue with the life just as always.

Well, I don't have anything against the social networking portals. In fact, I'm a regular visitor on at least a couple of such sites, Orkut and LinkedIn. But there is something that annoys me every time I check my inbox: someone has sent me an invite from x portal, and another from y portal. And, to my surprise, this someone and the other are my friends already connected to me on Orkut or LinkedIn.

I could never figure out why someone who is already connected to me requires me to get connected on yet another portal, just to add to my collection of user names and passwords? Or is it that they think I don't have anything worthwhile to do than browsing through profiles on x, y, and z portals?

And then, again, a couple of days later--many time after you are trapped, too--,they write to you, apologizing for the invite, saying it was auto-generated by that portal after trawling through their address books. Trawl through their address book? Sounds phishy, doesn't it? Well, yeah, it is another form of phishing. But then, when you ask more questions, you know. The portals didn't really invest in phishing techniques and technologies. Why should they, when there are so many naive users--techies, managers, journos, teachers, from all walks of life--who are more than willing to give their email IDs and passwords without any hesitation to anything that looks like a networking portal?! All my friends happily entered their email IDs and passwords and allowed those portals to get all that information that they wanted.

And some of those lucky ones had the good fortune of seeing their names on some mailing lists to which they never had sent a mail, despite wanting to. And that gave them a chance to send one more mail, to those 'august' mailing lists, apologizing for the inadvertent invites. Well, learning the hard way, someone might think. But then, who learns?

Maybe the one who fell in hot water, but for the others, that is just fun until they themselves fall prey to another such thing...

The operating system will be a "mobile variant of Linux" capable of running Java Virtual Machines.

Second, all the on-board applications will be Java-based, including the music/video player.

Third, the user interface is based in Java, is "very responsive", features a "search box", and will be "typical of mobile phones."

Fourth, the web browser -- also in Java -- will have pan and browse.

Lastly, there was initially one prototype, but since then the mobile OS has been seen running on between 3 and 5 devices, all of which rock the QWERTY.

Our view : google phone will be a mobile device capable of surfing internet (may be WIFI or WIMAX or 1X or EVDO or GPRS ( we dont expect GPRS because of low speed).It will not be the normal mobile phone and will be running a linux OS and capable of running all the google app including gmail, search, talk ( expect call out and callin from googletalk with a dial pad ).google apps, maps youtube videos and all other google applications. The main focus will be adv displays with content.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Friday night, four lucky people won the Mega Millions $330 million jackpot. That kind of number lends itself to fantasies of unlimited luxury. But the truth is, megamillions just aren't what they used to be.

A one-quarter share of the jackpot is $82.5 million. If the winner elects a lump-sum payment, which financial analysts suggest, they're down to $48.6 million after taxes. Already, unfortunately, the brand new millionaire is forced to make some compromises.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Onam ?Onam is the biggest festival in the Indian state of Kerala. Onam Festival falls during the Malayali month of Chingam (Aug - Sep) and marks the homecoming of legendary King Mahabali. Carnival of Onam lasts for ten days and brings out the best of Kerala culture and tradition. Intricately decorated Pookalam, ambrosial Onasadya, breathtaking Snake Boat Race and exotic Kaikottikali dance are some of the most remarkable features of Onam - the harvest festival in Kerala.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Young Adnan, who was kidnapped and then murdered by his friends, was a frequent Orkut visitor and met them on the site. This is not first of such incidents; one may remember the case of Kaushumbi who was also murdered by the guy she met on orkut.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"today, it's not so much about people you meet, but plastic face masks. Who thinks, talk and act to certain codes. That come from the head, and never from deeper within. It isn't so much about relationships you develop, it's more a matching of fake DNA. Sometimes when you want to have a real conversation, talk to your local alley cat. At least, she never hangs around when she doesn't want to.''-Kiara, Agent @ Model Casters (as quoted in Levis RedLoop)Well, wasn't that a great piece of reflection?I thought so. If Kiara was tired of 'botoxed, chin-tucked, boob-pinched, plasticated people', I'm tired of those polished, urbanized ones, who keep smiling almost mechanically, talk only politically-correct things, and are just pretenders.

Well, I know I can go on and on...on the purity of village life, on the old world charm, on the unhurried cities and towns from the other side of the spectrum...

but an occassional visit to the villages, a walk down the river banks, or up the east hills, or a travel in the line bus, well, that tells me how much of this urban thing is imported into those serene islands everyday. That said, well, those imports come not just through people, it comes through the air, the media, the movies... the pace is fast catching up...the emotions are fast draining off the faces, the thoughts are managed to sound trendy and politically correct...hmm...

hey, i know i have never been a fan of this "golden past", but you know when the present is all about pretensions, all about conveniences, all about excuses, and you know, all about me...

Currently we have only 2 major chip vendors - AMD and Intel - on desktop side (x86). If we don't buy AMD now, AMD will go into more losses and finally expect a close. This leaves only Intel in the field. As hardware is not software and as it requires manufacturing, we cant do a open source chip with current models. This gives Intel the freedom to price as they want.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ada pavi, you didn't get anything else, asked my friend, peeping on to the monitor and the title. ha, true, i had many more things to write about, but just thought i would write on this...doesn't it sound cool, norwegean wood?

well, cool or hot, that is the fact. the reality of living in a global village means trading off, or forgetting your history, your past, your lores, for the urban legends. I'm sure i'll see so many hands rising in triumph if i ask about harry poter at any of the schools in bangalore, mumbai, delhi, kolkatha, kochi, or hyderabad. but how many of those hands will remain up, if I ask about thenali raman, thacholi othenan, tagore, sivaji, or tipu?

K R Narayanan once said"Globalisation does not mean the end of history and geography and of the lively and exciting diversities of the world." It meant, rather, that global governance should be in harmony with the diversities it was required to contend with. Doesn't sound cool, norwegean wood?

Tailpiece: the friend who shouted the 'ada pavi,...' was busy sourcin the latest potter book for his niece...of course, his niece knows a few things about our own legends and lores, but we just got into this discussion on how fast this potter mania is catching up...and how cool and fashionable it has become to live in the present, the present presented by the media, and the hype.

Monday, August 13, 2007

A combination of simple dictionary and brute-force attacks in combination with Google hacking enabled a criminal pair to break into VoIP-provider networks and steal $1 million worth of voice minutes, says one of the duo who has pleaded guilty to his crimes.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The mundu is a garment worn around the waist in Kerala and Maldives related to the Dhoti as well as the Lungi. In South Canara district of Karnataka state the Tulu speaking folk and Beary community do use mundu. It is normally woven in cotton and coloured white or cream. The colour is dependent on whether the cotton is bleached or unbleached. Kaddar mundu is another kind which is made using handlooms. When unbleached the mundu is called a neriyathu. In modern times, two types of mundu are prevalent - the single and the double. A single mundu is draped once around the waist, while the double is folded in half before draping. A mundu is usually starched before use.

http://www.mundu.com/ talks about an IM product which claims: A comphrehensive Instant Messaging platform to help you build, grow and monetize your user community.

Another web 2.0 company playing with multi messaging ( i am not sure whetehr there 'll be a day when i can have one account and talk to different servers).The sadest part is i was not able to find even a single reference to any standards in the site. so i assume it as another propratory IM.

any way i think the wed designers managed to push a lot of open standard words in the platform features as features (looks the person who made the picture never know what he was drawing ).It more resembled me a preson who dont know english draws "To let" as "Toilet".I tried to download but looks slow , so i left it as it is :-)

Nice Gui, allowing me to login to a lot IM services without any registration to meebo and no software to install ( the all AJAX game )

My comments :=============Impressed ? yep a bit, not on the technology, on the GUI

Why not on technology ? Because i one time worked on a gaim kind of project and we took all the reverse engineered libs and made applications except for googletalk ( google talk is XMPP ). So if we make a full application with the reverse eng: libs we dont have any control and its a pain in the neck when feature changes.

How to realize it with open software ?=======================================WOW you can do that.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Nooo not a 8 or 32 core, its time for microprocessers for the next big jump.

Researchers at Intel this week are showing off an silicon modulator that can pass 40 gigabits of data in a second, a new record that indicates that fiber-inside-computers is really coming.Intel, among others, has projected that optical components may start getting integrated into computers toward the end of the decade

after ? Bio computers made to work for man.

tailpiece :I found the reson why Hindu doctine says there are 330 million gods.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Was reading "Taj Mahal selected in new seven wonders". Last days we were receiving mails with subject "Fwd: Are Indians Sleeping???? TAJ AT 14th Position (Only 0.7% Votes) " and some other sending Tajmahal was a temple.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Sivaji, the latest blockbuster from Rajnikanth, the south-Indian superstar, had generated a lot of initial hype. Lot more than a Tamil film would have ever dreamed to have. Weeks before the release, tickets were sold out for weeks; we heard stories of people who bought tickets for 10-50 times the actual price. And, we all thought that was something special to watch. Yes, I thought so, too. And that was what pulled me to the theatre for my first-ever Rajni film at a movie hall.

No Hollywood, no bollywood, only Rajniwood, read one poster at the driveway to the theatre. It means everything it says, I realized in the next three hours inside Innovative, a multiplex here in Bangalore. Crazy fans erupted into raptures when the titles showed SuperStar Rajnikanth, yeah, with its share of special effects. They cheered him, jeered at the villain, repeated the punchlines, and enjoyed every moment of the movie, through most of the film.

The first question, what has it in for me? Nothing, would be my first response. On second thoughts, yes, there are nicely pictured (and composed, too) songs, interesting fights, and a pretty heroine. Apart from that, nothing but predictability of a sure victory for the charming hero, whose make-up men deserve credit for a wonderful job of making Rajni so young and fit.

Then there is this talk about horoscope and faith, supported by sequences that make you think that horoscopes foretold your future. At the end of it all, you could just heave a sigh of relief as the pair reunites after the trials and tribulations and say, oh, yeah, that horoscope thing was bullshit, though. But the believers had enough reasons to believe that horoscopes do play a role in your lives. See what happened, the aunties would tell the rebellious lovers, what all hardships they had been through, and see, they survived it only because she was praying to the god, because of her offerings and fasting. And at the end, everybody is happy--the believers and non-believers. And, the film just leaves that to your interpretation. Well, you may argue, it's only an entertainer. Yes, agreed. It's an entertainer for Rajni fans, nothing more, nothing less.

So, what was the hype about? Just marketing. The hype got us in to the theatre. That made us believe there was something special. True, that hype had contributed to the house-full shows in the first few weeks. But in the long run, is it going to help? I doubt. If anything, that would leave people disenchanted. Even hardcore Rajni fans are saying, it was not up to their expectations. Why? The hype raised the bar, and they went expecting something very special and had to come back with nothing special (except that wonderful makeup of their hero) and that is no fault of the movie. It's the hype, that made the film look so ordinary. And, that's the problem with over-hyping and setting high expectations. How costly that could be? We'll know soon.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

On June 20, 1868, a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, called upon all Her Majesty's loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1st.

Buzzzword nowadays is global warming...... Its the new marketing mantra.Billions are spent, many have high profiles jobs... scientists are honoured who predicts iminent destruction of earth and human lives.

Heard from a friend , that india wont be livable in few decades due to warming....

For all these blah blah.... aint there an other side ...!!

So i did some googling .. and voila.. there is this ice age theory too........

May be by another decade india could be the best place to live... due to global cooling.....who knows.....

Monday, June 25, 2007

A person thowing a stone get the fruit from a tree.If the fruit falls down, who is the culprict ?

stone or the person who throwed the stone ?

Confused ??

read now :

"Companies that are polluting in China are owned by American, European, Japanese and others. They are benefiting from the cheap labor, from the resources and at the same time accusing China of pollution," the Malaysian official said.

"Let's take the hypocrisy out of the equation," he said.

Asian leaders also criticized the U.S. and Australia for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which caps the amount of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that can be emitted in industrialized countries

I think next 'll be Gulf , but who is worlds biggest Oil importer and burner ?? again :United States